P.S. Thanks for putting up listening to me complain about going back to the daily grind. Especially to those of you who haven't been able to take a break from it. We teachers are spoiled beyond reason!
I wanted to make something either on the sweet savory side or a fruity muffin delight. Since I had already made blueberry muffins this summer (I promise, I will post it....eventually) and though strawberry cupcakes looked tempting, I couldn't rationalize them as proper brunch food. I went with Pioneer Woman's Pull Apart Bread.
Sometimes I completely forget that I am human and imagine that I can complete tasks at superhuman speed. In other words, I really needed three and a half hours to completely make my bread, and I only had three.
This might seem like nothing to you, but it made my brain turn sideways and my eyes start to spin uncontrollably. True story.
This pull apart bread was quite interesting. It wasn't until I was hands deep in butter and cinnamon sugar that I realized I was basically making cinnamon rolls. Pioneer Woman states at least once, but probably twice, in the recipe how it is simply her cinnamon roll recipe but just delivered a different way, but I refused to believe it.
Cinnamon rolls are complicated and this, I reasoned, was not.
Instead of rolling the butter and cinnamon sugar coated dough, you are supposed to cut it into eight strips. The strips are then stacked on top of one another and sliced into squares. The squares are placed in a buttered bread pan and then baked.
The problem I faced was that in her pictures she did not melt the butter, but she smeared it onto the dough. The recipe, however, said to melt the butter. So I, of course, followed the recipe. This, and a very sticky dough, made it difficult to simply lift the squares up off the table, let alone stack them on top of one another.
Somehow I managed, but I concluded that pull apart bread was just as complicated as cinnamon rolls.
My bread still had twenty minutes to go once Megan had arrived.
She didn't want to be in the picture, but I insisted.
I love Megan. When I taught third grade, she worked in my classroom during the first period of the day. My students loved her, and I loved her being there. I miss my daily dose of Megan.
As much as I love her, she also makes me feel old. Because before she ever worked in my classroom, before we ever enjoyed delicious brunch together, I used to babysit her and her older sister, Emily.
Now Emily is married and Megan is in college and I want to cry.
Good thing I have this picture to take my mind off of that. Pioneer Woman does recommend cutting the recipe in half, but of course I had already poured and combined my first three ingredients when I remembered that I meant to remind myself to cut everything in half.
Goodness.
Now I have a loaf of pull apart bread in my freezer, a loaf on the table, and Megan has half a loaf with her at home.
Megan brought breakfast squares. These weren't any ordinary breakfast squares (though, I'm not sure if I've ever had a breakfast square to date). They were sausage, egg, and cheese with croissant holding the entire thing together. Here's what she did to make it extremely delectable: she cooked the sausage, then put it through the food processor.
Brilliant. Here's my beef with sausage. I don't like the crumbly texture of link sausage, and those sausage patties aren't much better. But thrown through the food processor? It's like a completely different animal.
She gave me the leftovers and I may or may not have already heated up a square to snack on.
Since I didn't make anything fruity, I decided to throw some fruit on the side to add a little color to our plates.
But these....these breakfast squares were where it's at. I'm not exactly sure where that is, but it's a real happening place that everyone should go to.
While in Shoprite earlier this week I saw this and my ever compulsive need to try new things took over. I knew it would be perfect for our brunch.
If you haven't seen this yet, run to your local grocery store and search for it today. Though it could never be the real thing (fresh is fresh, am I right?), it was close enough.
Going back to work is tough, but sharing my last day off brunching with a friend like Megan makes it just a tad easier.
We'll see how I feel Monday morning....
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